Celebrating Customer Sustainability Champions on World Environment Day
05/06/2024
On World Environment Day we are celebrating our fantastic Customer Sustainability Champions, who are playing a key role making our homes, neighbourhoods and business greener.
The 18-strong group is made up of customers – a mix of tenants and leaseholders - all passionate about helping us tackle climate change in our homes and neighbourhoods. Since the group’s launch in 2022, their input has been, and continues to be, key in helping us achieve our environmental targets.
Read about the ways our Customer Sustainability Champions have already helped us make important strides towards our green ambitions in our Big Plan and Sustainability Strategy.
Customer Sustainability Champions 2024/2025
Earlier this month our Customer Sustainability Champions came together for their first meeting of the financial year. They were joined by colleagues from our Stronger Communities, Sustainability and Communications teams and on the agenda this time was:
- Our latest SHIFT assessment score. We are delighted to have retained Silver status with improved performance. SHIFT is an independent assessment and accreditation scheme for the housing sector, which reviews our continuous work to reduce our environmental impact and futureproof our homes and neighbourhoods. Read more about our 2023 SHIFT assessment score.
- How our teams are helping customers to access support to stay warm, cut their energy bills and reduce the risk of going into fuel poverty through Oldham Council’s Warm Homes Oldham scheme and the Local Energy Advice Partnership (LEAP).
- Our work to invest £5.4m and deliver energy efficiency improvements to 350+ homes across the borough, made possible by a £2.4 million grant from wave two of the government’s Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF). This is part of our plan to deliver green upgrades to 3,800 properties across the borough 2023-2028, under which homes will benefit from a raft of improvements to make them warmer, cheaper to heat, more environmentally friendly, meet Net Zero targets and reduce household bills by up to 30%. Read more about our SDHDF wave two project.
There was constructive and lively discussion among our champions and colleagues about these matters, plus others including communication with residents about energy performance improvements, waste management and fly tipping, energy costs and training to support customers to be more eco friendly.
Feedback from champions at the meeting included:
“It’s good to know what First Choice Homes Oldham is doing to improve sustainability in our areas.”
“It has been great. The best thing is we as customers have the opportunity to get involved and give and thoughts and feedback.”
Reflecting on the session, Olivia Greenhalgh, our Sustainability Manager said: “Customers are at the heart of what we do and it’s brilliant to have this group of champions onboard who are interested in sustainability and climate change issues and want to make a positive difference in Oldham.
“Listening to their views and ideas is an important part of how we reduce the environmental impact of our homes, neighbourhoods and operations and I’m looking forward to working closely with them to help achieve our goals.”
Want to get involved and become a Customer Sustainability Champion?
Please email CI@FCHO.co.uk and a member of our team will contact you for a chat about the role.